Padres Pitchers Don’t Get Even, Just Get Giants

Oh, it wasn’t quite the satisfaction the Padres were seeking. They wanted to retaliate against the San Francisco Giants for one broken arm and four bumps and bruises this season but claimed that they never really had the opportunity.

So they did the next best thing.

The Padres defeated the Giants for the second time in less than 24 hours, 4-3 in 11 innings, Wednesday afternoon at Candlestick Park and then verbally assaulted them again from the sanctuary of the visitors’ clubhouse.

Certainly, there was no violent behavior on the field. Padre pitchers never threw any brush-back pitches, and even though Padre batters were hit three times during the series--including twice Wednesday--there was no retaliation.

The closest thing to any action Wednesday was in the seventh inning, when Giant starter John Burkett hit Padre second baseman Roberto Alomar in the left hand. Alomar began walking toward the mound and took three steps toward Burkett before both benches cleared. No punches were thrown, no pushes exchanged.

But once again, the Padres vowed, “Wait until next series.’ ”

Padre center fielder Joe Carter, who was hit in the left forearm Tuesday night by Francisco Olivares and then again in the right hand Wednesday by Burkett, said: “We’ve got to stand up for what we believe. They say they’re just pitching inside; well, there’s just too many coincidences, and I’m getting sick and tired of it. I’m really ticked off right now. I can see getting hit one time, but not five, six times.

“We already got one guy (Santiago) who’s out a month and a half. We all know that pitch to Benito was going for his head. And now they’re coming for more. Well, we’re not going to just stand there and take it.

“It’s one thing to pitch inside, fine. But you don’t have to come at someone’s head. You’re talking about people’s careers here.”

The Giants have hit five Padre batters in the past 29 innings; they’ve hit just four others in the other 63 games.

“This wasn’t the time,” Padre first baseman Jack Clark said, “but their time will come.”

Would it have come Wednesday if the game had not been so close, someone asked Carter.

“Oh, yeah, it definitely could have,” he said. “No, it definitely would have.”

Actually, several Padre position players said, even though all three games were close, they wished their pitchers would have retaliated once and for all to end all of these empty threats.

“If we wanted to do something,” Padre right fielder Tony Gwynn said, “it could have been done Monday night.”

Well, if you want to get technical about it, the Padres did pitch inside to the Giants once Wednesday, when Padre starter Andy Benes threw a fastball to Matt Williams.

“Oh, yeah,” Carter said, grimacing, “you mean the pitch he struck out on.”

Pat Dobson, the Padre pitching coach, defended his staff by saying that it would have been stupid to put any Giant hitters on base needlessly, particularly because the Padres never had a lead larger than one run Wednesday.

So their method of vengeance was simple, Dobson said.

Just get the damn guys out.

The Giants, the same team that was averaging nearly eight runs a game and batting .329 entering the three-game series, scored just eight runs in 28 innings against the Padres, batting a measly .159.

Their terrifying threesome of Will Clark, Kevin Mitchell and Williams, the sight of whom has left teams trembling, were reduced to pussycats.

Clark: two for 11, zero for four with runners in scoring position.

Mitchell: one for 12, zero for five with runners in scoring position.

Williams: two for 11, zero for four with runners in scoring position.

Total damage: .147 average, one homer, one triple, seven strikeouts and hitless in 13 opportunities with runners in scoring position.

Padre reliever Craig Lefferts, who spent the previous 2 1/2 years with the Giants, was their biggest nemesis. He bailed Greg Harris out of a bases-loaded jam in the seventh inning Tuesday night by getting Clark to fly out to left, then returned Wednesday for an encore.

Lefferts came onto the scene this time in a 3-3 tie in the eighth. Clark was on first, Mitchell at the plate, Williams on deck.

What problem?

Lefferts induced Mitchell into an infield pop-up, ending the eighth, then managed to squirm out of the Giants’ best opportunity to win in the 10th.

With one out, leadoff hitter Brett Butler attempted to reach with a bunt single but instead popped it up toward first base. Clark stuck out his glove to catch it but dropped it. The crowd of 40,071 at Candlestick loved it, just as they had enjoyed Clark extending his hitless string to 26 at-bats.

Greg Litton further complicated matters by hitting a single to center, sending Butler to third. Next up: Will Clark. The fans rose to their feet and reached for their car keys, prepared to see Clark win the game by just hitting the ball out of the infield.

Instead, Clark hit a soft ground ball to shortstop Garry Templeton. Butler broke for home, and Templeton threw to catcher Ronn Reynolds, who easily tagged out Butler.

Mitchell was next up. He stood at the outside edge of the batters’ box, so far away from home plate, Lefferts remembers thinking, that he was daring him to pitch inside. Lefferts threw a slider down and in and groaned as Mitchell hit a line shot down the left field line.

But there was third baseman Mike Pagliarulo, sticking out his glove and catching the white blur to end the inning and what would be the Giants’ final threat.

Pagliarulo, deciding to end this nonsense, opened the 11th by hitting a ball into the right-field corner for his first triple in two years. Shawn Abner drove him in with a double that caromed off Litton’s glove in right field. And that was all the Padres needed. Harris came on in the 11th, pitched a one-two-three inning, and the Padres became the first team since the Pittsburgh Pirates on May 26-27 to defeat the Giants in successive games.

It was then time for the Padres to vent their emotions about the Bay Area boys.

Said Alomar, the man who casually strolled toward the mound after being hit by Burkett: “Those guys are throwing at us on purpose. There’s no right-hander that can throw to your head like that. He’s not that wild. I told him I’m not going to put up with it. I’m not afraid of those guys. I’m still mad what they did to Benito.”

But there was no one more angered than Carter. He actually had to be restrained by Gary Carter, Will Clark and Rick Parker from going to the mound and saying his piece.

“I really don’t know what I was going to do,” Joe Carter said, “but I know this, we weren’t going to put up with it anymore.”

Countered Will Clark: “Joe kept saying, ‘We had five guys hit. We had five guys hit.’

“Hey, I got a solution, plain and simple, get out of the way.”

Stay tuned. The Padres promise the best still is to come when they meet again Sept. 3-4 in San Diego.

Padre Notes

It might be time for Padre Manager Jack McKeon to enroll his players in those math and geography classes. Padre second baseman Roberto Alomar, forgetting there were already two outs in the sixth inning, took a throw from third baseman Mike Pagliarulo and then threw to first base to get bewildered Kevin Mitchell for the imaginary fourth out. It’s at least the third time this season that the Padres have forgotten either the count or how many outs there were in an inning. It was Tuesday night that Padre outfielder Shawn Abner walked off second base with a two-count strike on Joe Carter. And it was May 9 in St. Louis when Pagliarulo walked off the field after two outs as a run scored. But the most comical incident of all occurred Tuesday night after Craig Lefferts got out of a bases-loaded jam in the seventh. He immediately started running into the Giants’ dugout until he was intercepted by Padre first baseman Jack Clark. Oops. Sorry, Lefty, you’re a Padre now. . . . Lost in the Padres’ victory was the performance of Andy Benes, who allowed just one hit and two runs (one earned) in six innings.